Clinical Virology
Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD
Professor of Pathology and Medicine (Infectious Diseases)
Director, Clinical Virology Laboratory
As the Medical Director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory for Stanford Health Care and the Stanford Children’s Health, as well as the Medical Co-Director for Point of Care Testing, and the Medical Director of Esoteric (Send-out) testing, 60% of my time is spent attending to clinical responsibilities. Teaching medical students, residents, and fellows, as well as administrative tasks, including serving on the Integrated Pediatric Infectious Disease Committee and chairing the Clinical Laboratory Utilization Committee, account for 20%. The remaining 20% is dedicated to scholarly activities, focusing on the design of novel infectious disease diagnostics and investigation of the clinical relevance of molecular infectious disease testing.
Matthew M. Hernandez, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology (Clinical Microbiology)
Associate Director, Clinical Microbiology Laboratory
Associate Director, Clinical Virology Laboratory
Matt Hernandez received his MD/PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York City. His graduate work focused on viral-host interactions and tracing HIV evolution in vivo using genomic tools. During his training, he applied his skills to the clinical laboratory and helped found the ISMMS Personalized Virology Initiative. Through this, he developed genomic surveillance programs to capture spread, and evolution of respiratory viruses and established innovative testing to meet SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic needs for New Yorkers early in the COVID-19 pandemic. After medical school, he completed residency training in Clinical Pathology at ISMMS. During this, he continued to foster his passions for pathogen evolution and used diagnostics to characterize real-time introductions and spread of SARS-CoV-2 in New York and South America as well as helped bring on Mpox diagnostic assays to tackle the global outbreak. After residency, he completed his medical microbiology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. He then moved west to join the Department of Pathology at Stanford where he serves as the Associate Director of the Clinical Microbiology and Virology Laboratories. His research interests include exploiting genomics to (1) dissect inter- and intra-host pathogen diversity, (2) to shed light on mechanisms shaping pathogen evolution and drug-resistance development, and (3) to develop novel, optimized diagnostics to capture emergent pathogens. He also loves teaching and strives to open the door to others interested in infectious disease diagnostics and research.